A rchive Date
[ 04-06-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Peter_Worthington/2004/06/04/484992.html
CIA director a scapegoat for screw-up
By PETER WORTHINGTON - For the Toronto Sun
Fri, June 4, 2004
No one wants to call him a "fall guy," but that's what he is. And it's probably deserved.
George Tenet, 51, lasted longer as CIA director than most predecessors, and was the first one since 1977 to keep his job in a change of administrations. Usually a new president from a different political party wants his own man as CIA director.
George W. Bush kept Tenet, whom Bill Clinton appointed director in 1997. Tenet had been acting director for a year. Democrats and Republicans seem to like his folksy way of not dodging blame, accepting responsibility, being upfront and decent. Tenet was on the National Security Council (NSC) before Clinton sent him to the CIA in 1993 as deputy director.
At the time, Clinton praised his "superb job," of setting out intelligence priorities - ironically, the same words as used by President Bush ("superb job") in accepting resignation "for personal reasons."
Looked at dispassionately, Tenet had to go.
The CIA screwed up on its intelligence about Iraq - especially its report that Saddam Hussein was acquiring uranium, which Bush quoted in his State of the Union address in 2003 and which was wrong.
Tenet took the blame for the error. Some felt he was being noble and protecting the president. More seriously, the CIA believed Saddam had lots of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
So did every intelligence agency in the world - including Iraqi intelligence, Saddam himself and most of his generals. It now seems that Iraqi scientists involved in making bio-chemical weapons feared for their lives and lied to Saddam about their progress.
Iraqi generals have since said they believed the WMD fact - but thought other commanders had access to them and their turn would come. This is one of the great ironies of the war, and inevitable when underlings fear for their lives if they don't produce what the tyrant wants.
As for the CIA and FBI underestimating the 9/11 terrorist attack, that's a bit of a stretch. Who knows which rumours are true, and which are fiction? Hindsight is always 20/20. However, 9/11 is testimony to the general casualness of U.S. intelligence for more than a decade. This isn't to excuse George Tenet or to justify lapses.
Tenet's greatest failing may be when as a member of the NSC and then as deputy director of the CIA after the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center, he didn't work to co-ordinate intelligence agencies.
In the first WTC bombing, there was evidence of Iraqi complicity, followed by proof of planned simultaneous terror attacks on aircraft around the world, which the CIA and FBI pooh-poohed.
The FBI and CIA barely communicated and the 1993 bombing was treated as a "domestic crime," not as "international terrorism."
Blame for that, and the failure to co-ordinate intelligence, rests with the Clinton administration, which also failed to react appropriately to embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and the attack on the USS Cole.
Looking back, Bush should have had a new broom sweep out the CIA - as he did the FBI - if not when he first took office, certainly after 9/11. Tenet's decency, honesty and courage to accept blame don't mitigate CIA failures.
As for Tenet, most seem to echo Democratic Senator Charles Schumer's tribute that Tenet was "an honourable and decent man ... and no one should make him a fall guy for anything."
Except that's what he is - a fall guy.
Worthington normally appears Friday and Sunday. Letters to the editor should be sent to: editor@tor.sunpub.com Home Page
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